Is now available the release A2.3 that support the Android application developed by shineangelic, both can be downloaded from the SourceForge repository, the link for them in the download section of the Souliss site.

Regards,Dario.

Souliss - Open-source Distributed Home Automation with Arduino and Android

is from long time back that I don't include there updates about the Souliss project. We spent more than four months in rebuilding some features to get a better user interaction and now we are ready with the new release A4.

The biggest change is in the communication side, now the whole project is based on binary protocols, up to release A3 only the communication between the board was in binary rather the communication to user interface was based on ASCII protocol (HTTP/JSON).It was working but when we included support for software IP stack (used in case of ENC28J60 controller) there were a slow down of the performances and too many use of RAM, so we moved to a binary protocol that for the Android interface is Macaco over vNet like for the boards.Of course MaCaco is not a standard, so we looked into binary protocols available without license fee and we decided to include Modbus RTU and TCP.

Now the performances are really increased and there is a better use of RAM, where some efficiency was get modifying the buffer handling and introducing the oFrame data structure.There is also a one more, the IP part is moved from TCP to UDP in order to support broadcasting (not yet released).

If we look to these modification in terms of user benefit, we have that now Android does no longer poll Souliss boards for data, because MaCaco is event based; there is more RAM available on the application side (for the boards). Then Modbus is a new starting point, because is supported by many interfaces and let build an own in a simple way.

On the Modbus side, we get the support from IntegraXor that is offering it's SVG SCADA User Interface for Souliss, so now people can drawn their own interface in Inkscape and then control over it their home.

This release is a new starting point for the project.

As usual, more information on our website and now also on twitter @soulissteam.

Please consider to contribute to the project, there are many ways: use Souliss and report improvement and bugs, be a Souliss evangelist, write documentation or tutorial or examples, write code or improve actual features.

Regards,Dario.

Souliss - Open-source Distributed Home Automation with Arduino and Android

Lets link a couple of user examples that are quite interesting: the former mix RCSwitch and Souliss in order to have Android controlled RF power sockets; the latter builds a media center using Android mixed with Souliss as light controller.

http://www.souliss.net/2013/09/controlling-cheap-rc-power-socket.html

http://www.souliss.net/2013/09/showcase-lorenzos-souliss.html

Enjoy,Dario.

Souliss - Open-source Distributed Home Automation with Arduino and Android